Tire bulging!!

[jlanger]

Well looking at my car today I notice that one of my tires is bulging around an area that I scraped the rim a few months ago. AMazing how something can happen after so long a time. I'll take it in on Friday and see how bad the rim is damaged. Since the tire is bulging(ping pong ball size on teh side wall), I'm asuming it's probably shot. I have 20k on the tires and am thinking that replacing a set of 2 would be the best bet. If this is the case I'll have them rotated to the rear and will look at getting the other set of 2 new tires later this summer. Any thoughts?

[bruce95fmla]

yeah put the old ones in the back and the new ones in the front.
Them damn bubles are the plaque.

[95ProLeila]

old ones on front, its safer.

[jlanger]

old ones on front, its safer.

Agreed. Just hope that the rim isn't to messed up.

[Intruder]

old ones on front, its safer.

Can you explain?

[charles]

and how is that safer?

understeer anyone?

There's a nifty looking diagram at the tire store that shows how they put new tires on the rear to keep the ass from swinging out...or something like that.

[95ProLeila]

yeah, there was just an article in Motor Trend this month, most of the tire stores put em on the front bc they're the drive wheels. Not a good idea, I posted a thread about it yesterday

http://www.wihandyman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6974

[bruce95fmla]

Why would he put the worn tires on the front, better to put the worn tires on the back and the new in the front. When you do that the new tires can break in and wear a bit quicker. At least untill the rears are replaced or rotated again.
80% of the weight of our cars is in the front and that's why the front tires wear more.

You can't use understeer as a reason to not do it.

[jlanger]

I was watching the tire pressures, in fact the pressure is still around 35psi (which I think is the range) BTW I am running the stock Dulops. I do try to keep an eye on this as I understand that low pressures are really bad for low profile tires. I'm guessing either a bad pothole got it, (which this time of the year in MN is horrible) or the rim was more damaged when I kissed the curb this winter then I thought.
Anyway the car is parked until I figure out what exactly I want to do. I'm at 20k now and the tires were showing a little bit of wear so I'm just debating about replacing the entire set with 205/45-205/50 or just getting a pair of 195/50 's and rotating the old ones to the front. I understand that whole thing. Protege Menace's friend just about lost his life to a tree for putting new tires on the front.
Any advantages to sticking with the 195's instead of the 205's and vice versa? I'm thinking that hte 195's would still be better in the snow (skinnier easier cut through it). I don't want to buy snow tires and summer tires, seasons are so goofy here I don't trust that the weather will stay nice if I switch.

Anyway thanks for all the advice.

[95ProLeila]

Bruce, its not about understeer. Putting worn tires on the rear makes it very unpredictable, pick up this months Motor Trend, they explain it better than I can

[bruce95fmla]

yeah but if the tires have between 75 to 90 % of the thread life still in them, how can it harm the handleing?

[95ProLeila]

I went back to the orignial post and reread, my eyes must've ignored the "20K on the tires"

[rando]

jlqnger,
Are you building an airplane by any chance?

[ZoomZoomH]

20k is already quite a bit on those stock Dunlops (assuming you still have stock rims/tires)

Costco has a policy where if you are only replacing 2 tires the new ones ALWAYS go to the back first

reason being, when you understeer you can SEE where you're heading (straightforward lol), and since you can see where the car is going, you have a better chance at a last second recovery to avoid a serious accident. When you oversteer, your tail end comes around and you have NO IDEA where you will end up.

90% of the time understeer is easier to recover from than oversteer, for street driving at least.

there's a reason why just about all the street cars off the showroom floor are tuned for some understeer.

[jlanger]

Are you building an airplane by any chance?

Nope, why?

Currently looking at Kumho Ecsta ASX or maybe Falken FK-451/ZE-512 ZIEX Not quite sure yet. Just got to figure out some financial stuff. Just a warning, Tires Plus quoted me $248 for one tire mounted!